


roots that twine together

by SatyrSyd37



Series: roots that twine together [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, BokuAka Week, Edo Period, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mushishi-esque, Nature Magic, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-10 21:44:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10448220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatyrSyd37/pseuds/SatyrSyd37
Summary: Akaashi Keiji knows the natural world better than anyone in his village. That is, until Bokuto Koutarou, a boy with mysterious powers over plants, makes him question everything he thought he knew.(each chapter is a new day/prompt)





	1. blossom in the east

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: **Cherry Blossoms ~ First Meeting** _(both)_
> 
> A chance meeting in a cherry tree.

**** The first time, it’s cherry blossoms.

As autumn nears its end, and a quilt of dead leaves coats the hardened ground, winter whispers trails of frost along the forest floor. The village of Fukuro, a small, quiet town near the base of a river basin, packs away their recently harvested rice in preparation for the changing seasons. 

Akaashi Keiji heads home to Fukuro, basket of tubulars balanced on his hip, following the worn earth of the dirt pathway. Wind whistles through the trees, rustling their leaves in a playful jingle. To the west, the sun sets, illuminating the hillside in a dull orange haze. 

Even with last night’s birthday dinner feast still tumbling in his gut, Akaashi craved his favorite lotus roots, found only in a patch beyond the hills, half a day’s travel away. Against the adults’ protests, Akaashi had gone alone, arguing that now that he was fourteen, he was mature enough to venture over the hills by himself. Faced with his stubbornness, they had no choice but to agree.

Akaashi was often alone. Not by ostracism, but by choice. When he wasn’t working the rice paddy or the pottery wheel, he liked to wander the fields and the forest and the hills. The others thought that Akaashi appreciated the quiet, but that wasn’t true. Nature was never quiet. Fish splashing in a stream, wind howling through the trees, leaves scratching against the ground. Akaashi listened to the voice of nature, and though he could not understand its words, he revered the beauty and power of its language.  

He makes it his business to learn to read the flowers, to hear the soil, to look at a leaf and understand what he had to do to keep it alive. Though Akaashi still has a far way to go, his skills outdo most of the other villagers. 

Akaashi clenches the basket tighter against his body. His hands ache from digging roots all day, and he can hardly wait to get home. 

He stops walking when a patch of white catches his eye. Akaashi glimpses ahead of him, at the hill before him, where the cherry blossom tree stands in full bloom.

He nearly drops his basket. He blinks his eyes rapidly, but the white flowers, tinged with pink, proudly flourish, hanging in the air like a cloud. 

Akaashi knows when the cherry blossoms bloom and they do not bloom in the fall. 

His feet carry him to the base of the hill and he begins to climb. Something’s not right. It’s nearly winter, how could the tree be in bloom? It’s branches were bare only yesterday. How could it have grown so quickly?

He makes his way up the hill, feet lost in the swaying grass, the wind playing with the sleeves of his  _ kosode _ . With a final strain of his calves, he comes face to face with the tree’s trunk. He looks up at the blanket of petals dotting the sky.

An unfamiliar boy perches between the lower boughs of the cherry blossom tree. Golden eyes catch the last bit of light from the setting sun, giving him an almost ethereal appearance. Wisps of white-and-black hair catch on the lazy breeze, surrounding the boy’s head in a halo of feathers, giving him the appearance of a fledgling that wandered too far from the nest.

The boy doesn’t notice Akaashi’s presence. He doesn’t notice him as he hovers his palms around the base of the tree in circles, his face twisted in concentration. He curls his finger up and up, and Akaashi watches in awe as a nub sprouts from the branch, and grows longer and longer, extending towards to sky by the guidance of the boy’s hands. He cups the branches in his palms and pulses upwards, leaving a new patch of buds, small and pink, in their wake.

He's never seen anything like it. 

“Magic…” Akaashi whispers.

The boys startles at his voice, nearly falling out of the tree. “Oh my gosh, you scared me!” he bursts. 

“Sorry.” Akaashi says. 

The boy smiles easily. “It’s okay! I probably should have been paying more attention,” he says, rubbing his neck bashfully. 

“Um. How did you do...that?” Akaashi gestures vaguely at the tree. 

His eyebrows shoot up gleefully, and he almost falls out of the tree in excitement. “It’s a gift! Kind of like a super power. I can make things grow,” the boy proclaims. “Like this!”

He brandishes a finger in the air like a scythe, then brings it down upon the branch with a tenderness antithetical to his booming voice and dramatic actions. The moment he taps each bud they burst into bloom, in a series of tiny, white explosions. 

“Pretty cool, huh?” 

Torn between awe and fear and jealousy, Akaashi simply says, “I think that’s an understatement.”

Akaashi’s gaze falls to the boy’s hands. They are square, and large, and just like every other pair of hands he’s seen. They don’t look like the kind of hands hold the power of life in them. Yet Akaashi had just seen with his own eyes the blossoms spring to life. 

He glances up at the cherry tree, at the umbrella of white looming over him. The buds and blossoms look strong and healthy, even as an icy breeze shakes the branches. It is truly a miracle. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Akaashi says.

The boy cocks his head. “What? Why?”

“It will be too cold when the winter comes.” He bends down, knees hovering over the dirt, and picks up a small white flower from the ground, pinching it lightly between his fingers. Beneath the dirt, the roots of the tree grew strong, but this bud is exposed to the elements, and much more fragile. “These flowers will die.”

The smile on the boy’s face drops suddenly, like a bud from the tree. “You mean…I’ve killed it?” he asks, horrified. 

“Akaashi. I see you’ve met our new guest.”

Akaashi turns around to see the village shaman, Yamiji. Golden lines from the setting sun line his silhouette, giving new life to his aging frame. A smile as new and hopeful as the soft petals of the cherry blossoms buds on his lips. 

“This is Bokuto Koutarou. He will be under my apprenticeship for the next several years, learning to use and control abilities. I hope you will be able to offer him your hospitality.”

The first time, it’s cherry blossoms. And under that blanket of petals blossoms the beginnings of friendship. 


	2. daffodillying around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: ~~Reminiscent~~ ~ **New Life**
> 
> Akaashi helps Bokuto plant daffodils.

Clay spins beneath his fingers, soft and damp and malleable. Akaashi’s fingers brush the sides of the clay as he spins the wheel, urging the mound to grow higher, higher, careful not spread it too thin. One hand guiding the side, his thumb dips into the middle of the mound, slowly, slowly, gradually pulling towards the edges -

“Agaaaasheeeee!”

\- straight through the pliant walls. The mound folds in on itself in a heartbeat, collapsing into a pile of mush. Akaashi sighs, and stops the wheel.

“Yes, Bokuto-san?” he calls.

Footsteps patter up behind him until a familiar head pops around the doorway. He takes one look at the pitiful blob on Akaashi’s pottery wheel and brings his hands up to his face.

“Oh no, did I make you mess up? I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Akaashi runs his hands over the mound, smoothing it into a more spherical shape. “I can just start over.”

Hearing other people besides himself in his house still took him by surprise. Akaashi was often left alone while his father, a merchant, left on business. He was off on business more often than not. Akaashi stopped begrudging him that a long time ago, though. But he really shouldn't be all that surprised when Bokuto's booming voice echoes through his house, considering how often Bokuto comes to visit him.

Ever since his arrival half a year ago, Bokuto came to him for help. Yamiji-sense taught him how to connect spiritually with nature, how to practice the rituals of a shaman, how to meditate and control his mood, which easily influence the extent of his powers. But he saved the technical questions for Akaashi. Questions about the growing seasons of certain plants, or what herbs had which properties, or, since he was still unfamiliar with the area, where certain plants grew. Although his constant questions are a little irritating, Akaashi likes spreading his knowledge and putting everything he’s learned to use.

Akaashi doesn't understand why Bokuto picked him. He could easily ask for help from Yamiji-sensei, or any of the other children in the village - Akaashi certainly isn't the only one with knowledge about plants. But Bokuto always came to him.

At this point, it’s become routine. So Akaashi isn’t surprised when Bokuto asks him for help growing daffodils.

“You should be focusing on controlling your mood,” Akaashi tells him.

“But Akaashiiiii…!”

Lately, Bokuto’s let his moods slip from his fingers and run wild around the village. His excitement the other day wrapped the village huts in a blanket of vines. Before that, his anger sent an army of weeds nipping at everyone’s ankles. The extent of Bokuto’s control was a little amusing, and a little scary.

Akaashi is utterly, completely jealous.

“Why did you want to know about daffodils?”

“Well, they’re Yamiji-sensei’s favorite, and he’s been feeling down lately, so I wanted to do something nice for him! I know daffodils aren’t really that important to my training, but they’re important to him,” Bokuto asserts. “Please please please? I know you’re busy but you’re the perfect person to help me out!”

He glances at the clay, still malleable, waiting to become something. He tosses it back in the wet clay pile to to use later, and lets out a deep, weathered sigh.

He supposes his pottery will have to wait.

 

An hour later, they find themselves in a daffodil patch at the foothills near the cherry blossom tree.  

“Woohoo!” Bokuto runs around the patch twice, then flops down in the middle of it. Akaashi walks over and kneels down next to him. The grass suctions around Bokuto’s frame, as if it wants to pull Bokuto down and bury him in the earth to sleep among the roots. The daffodils turn their face towards him, petals fluttering and smiling in greeting. To the plants, Bokuto is the sun, with a shining smile that rivals the brightest rays.

“These are perfect, ‘Kaashi,” Bokuo says, brushing his fingers along the attention-seeking petals. “I’m going to plant some of their seeds in front of Yamiji-sensei’s house. I think seeing them will cheer him up.”

Akaashi smirks. “I’m sure he’d be much happier if you held your meditation pose for longer than five minutes.”

Bokuto pouts.

He reaches around and plucks a baby daffodil from the ground, spinning the stalk between his fingers. All of the sudden he leans forward and shoves it behind Akaashi’s ear.

“There! Now you look pretty,” Bokuto proclaims. “Well, prettier…”

Bokuto wears his grin like a medal, as proud as ever, but there’s a softer edge to it. Against his better judgement a heat invades Akaashi's cheeks, turning them as pink as the buds on the cherry blossom tree. Akaashi quickly reaches to take the flower out, but Bokuto’s hand shoots out and grabs his wrist.

“Wait wait wait!” he says, eyes wide. “Don’t move it yet!”

This close, he can make out the shiny streaks in Bokuto’s bright gold eyes. Mesmerized, he relaxes, and lets Bokuto lower his hand into his lap. His right hand still tightly holding Akaashi’s, he scoots forward, eyes fixed on the flower. With the other hand, Bokuto traces the shell of his ear, and he can feel the stem of the daffodil begin to tremble. Immediately, petals brush against his cheek, almost as soft and light as Bokuto’s fingers.

“There. Perfect.”

He reaches up again, slowly, and touches the flower. The small bud had burst to life, nearly as large as Akaashi’s palm. But there’s more. The stem winds down his neck until it breaks into two, three, four - Akaashi follows the stems back up around his head to feel a crown of flowers dotting his hair.

A smile grows on his lips.

Now Bokuto’s the one blushing.

“Your power is truly amazing,” Akaashi says breathlessly.

Bokuto beams. “I know! It’s awesome! And once I learn how to control it, I’m going to be the best - the best...whatever I am. What do these powers make me...a plant magician? Super gardener? Nature man?”

“Fertilizer,” Akaashi offers.

“Agaashiii!”

Akaashi shows him how to properly harvest seeds from the daffodils near the end of their life. They place the seeds in the pot Akaashi had the foresight to bring along.

“Akaashi, why do you know so much about plants?” Bokuto asks at one point.

Akaashi pauses. He looks down at the flower in his hand. The petals have shriveled up into a stiff cylinder, protruding from an ovular green bulge at the apex of the limp stem. He digs his thumb into the bulge, opening its folds to expose the tiny white seeds, a chance of new life, buried within the dying flower.

The daffodils - even this one, with its stiff browned petals - have a liveliness that Akaashi appreciates with every waking moment. Most of the villagers do as well. Bokuto has no idea what kind of power he holds. Those hands, covered in dirt and grass stains, can decide the course of life and death, can propagate prosperity or trigger travesty. With those hands - and enough practice - he could raise a field of healthy crops in the midst of the driest heave wave. There may be a price that came with that power, but Bokuto's power over nature could accomplish infinitely more than Akaaashi's simple knowledge ever could. 

Akaashi often wonders what he could have down if he was born with that power. 

“It’s our way of survival,” Akaashi tells him, scooping the seeds into the pot. “We need to understand everything we can about them in order to live.”

“Oh. I get it.”

But as Akaashi watches the daffodils bloom around Bokuto’s arms, curling around his biceps and ticking his neck, as much as he wants to believe it, Akaashi doesn’t think he understands at all.


	3. silverthorn and gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3: ~~Model/Photographer~~ ~ **Wings/Fly**
> 
> Akaashi and Bokuto help out a feathered friend.

Akaashi believes the rice paddies are most beautiful in the morning. The sun reflects off the flooded field, turning murky water gold. Straight green stalks in perfect lines peek out from the water, stretching as far as the eye can see, the pattern broken only by the occasional water duct. In the distance, hills and then mountains sprawl along the horizon, blurred by morning mist and glare from the sun. The never-ending drone of cicadas complements the never-ending rows of the field. The rice stalks sway in the wind, creating tiny rings of water that grow bigger as they float further out. The rice they harvest from here is their main source of food. The paddies require a fair amount of work to tend to, but it leaves them with enough time to do other jobs. But now that harvest season is upon them, the villagers devote most of their attention to the crops.

Akaashi and Bokuto walk around the perimeter of the paddy. After a year’s worth of training, Yamiji trusts him to walk around the field to ensure the stalks grow healthily. 

“Hey ‘Kaashi. I bet I could run across the whole field and back before you count to thirty.”

Akaashi doesn’t trust Yamiji’s judgement. “Please do not, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto smiles at him, and flicks his arm. “I told you, you can drop the -san.”

Akaashi flicks him back. “You are my senior. And Yamiji-sensei’s apprentice. You deserve my respect.”

“Yeah, but we’re friends.” Akaashi’s heart skips a beat when Bokuto calls them friends. He knows they are, but this is the first time Bokuto has said it aloud. It's kind of...nice. “We should have cool nicknames for each other! Maybe I should call you Akaashi-chan. Aka-chan. How does that sound, Aka-chan?”

“If you call me that one more time, I will never talk to you again.”

Bokuto giggles. “Okay, Akaashi-kun.”

“Don’t call me that either.”

Bokuto hums. “How about Keiji, then?”

The name emerged from Bokuto’s lips like a gift wrapped neatly in fine rice paper, small and whole, and handled with grace befitting of royalty. He held the name out to him with hands made of sincerity and warmth. The offering sparks explosions in his stomach that set his cheeks aflame.

He hasn’t heard anyone say his first name like that in years. Since the last time he heard his mother’s voice.

He looks away to hide his blush. “Just Akaashi,” he says firmly. He doesn’t understand why he feels as deeply as he does about a simple name. But he doesn’t think any mere ‘friend’ could have that effect on him. 

“Well, Just Akaashi, that’s too boring! We need - ” Bokuto stops, his expression suddenly serious. He looks into the woods, opposite the paddy. “What was that?”

Akaashi frowns. He stops walking and listens, trying to figure out what Bokuto had heard.

This time he hears it. A rustling in the bushes. They both turn towards the noise. It sounds again, and this time they see a silverthorn bush a few meters away move.

Bokuto dashes around to the other side of the bush. Akaashi hurries to catch up to him, but Bokuto’s already calling out, “Akaashi! Akaashi we need to help it!”

There, tangled in the bush, is an egret. Strong white wings, splayed wide, shudder against the viney restraints. Thin black legs kick dirt up from the ground. A long, thin, yellow beak opens and closes in agony. Eyes, opened wide, spell out fear. 

“It’s okay, ‘kaashi, I got this,” Bokuto says. He pushes up his sleeves, rubs his hands together, and points them at the plant. 

The bush grows and grows and grows, messy and wild. The silverthorn reaches out and grabs the bird even tighter, its branches like fingers strangling its neck, leaves like nails digging into its feathers. 

“Stop, Bokuto-san - you’re making it worse - ”

The egret cries out, and Bokuto lowers his hands.

“Oh no. Oh no oh no…” 

“I’ll try untangling it. You stay there.”

Bokuto reaches out, opening his mouth in protest. But Akaashi gives him a look, and his hand drops. He falls back on his heels in submission. “...okay.”

Akaashi tries a hand at freeing the egret. Working around the bird is difficult: it’s nearly a meter tall, with strong wings that beat against the bush and a sharp beak swinging in panic. Not to mention the annoying leaves of the silverthorn - edged with spiky ridges - poke his hands and cling to the bird’s feathers. He swears their points grew sharper than natural when Bokuto messed with them. The task is made even more difficult by the sheer density of leaves and branches encapsulating both him and the bird.

“I only make things worse,” Bokuto moans.

Akaashi bites his tongue to keep from saying,  _ Yes, you have.  _ “That’s not true,” he recites, tugging another leaf free from the bird’s wing. He reaches up, scratching his hand as he avoids the egret’s beak, and grabs a branch chaining the egret’s neck. 

“Yes it is. You don’t have to lie to me, Akaashi. I know that the villagers think I’m stupid, that I’m a waste of space. They’re right. I can’t do anything.”

As Akaashi opens his mouth to reassure him, the branch he’s holding snaps between his fingers. He looks down. The branches are shrinking, growing thin, turning a chalky brown. The leaves dry up until they're paper thin, suffocating and drooping. The tiny fruits shrivel up. The plant is slowly, steadily, wilting. 

Akaashi knew Bokuto’s moods influenced the state of the nature around him. When Bokuto was happy, the plants around him would shoot towards the sky. When he was nervous, they would fall against the ground. When he was angry, they would twist and multiply and grow wild. But he had never seen it act like this before, completely shrivel up and wilt. 

Seeing this plant die before his eyes is absolutely terrifying. It’s unnatural. Or rather, it’s the most natural thing of all. 

But the dead plant is much easier to maneuver than the live, healthy one. Akaashi tells himself not to panic, and pushes down the once-stubborn branches with shaking hands. He rips out a root wrapped around the egret’s leg and the bird is finally free. It leaps out of the bush, fluffing its feathers. 

“Look, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi urges.

“I don’t want to look at my failure.”

“You didn’t fail. Look.”

Bokuto looks up just as the egret squawks in gratitude. Not wasting a moment, it spreads its wings and takes to the skies. 

Bokuto rubs his eyes clear and looks again. They watch the egret as it flies away, a white dot in the bright blue sky, shrinking smaller and smaller until it finally disappears. 

Bokuto continues staring up in disbelief. Yet his pupils reflect the hopefulness of the cloudless sky. “How did…”

Akaashi tugs his sleeve and points to the bush. It’s shrunken into a mere, browned skeleton, a corpse in contrast with the greenery surrounding it. “The branches weakened enough for me to pull it free,” he explains. 

“Oh…I guess that means I did it,” Bokuto says. He turns to Akaashi and smiles. “I saved him! Hey hey hey, I’m pretty awesome, aren’t I?”

Though Akaashi is in awe of Bokuto’s power, he’s not sure if it’s from admiration or fear. “You did kill that poor silverthorn.”

“Agaashi! I saved the bird, that’s what’s important, right?”

“You shouldn’t have to sacrifice the plant to do it,” Akaashi says. Bokuto’s head dips, his excitement waning. Sparing his friend a little mercy, he adds, “But your magic was focused on that single plant, which is impressive.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” Bokuto says, a smile coming back on his lips. “I’m going to do even better next time, just wait!”

“The next time we happen to run into a trapped animal?”

“Akaashi! You know what I mean!”

As they head back to the rice paddy, Akaashi glances back behind him at the dead silverthorn. 

But it doesn’t look dead anymore. To his surprise, the silverthorn’s leaves already look green again. Green turned to brown turned green once again.

It's absolutely terrifying.

 

Bokuto doesn’t talk for a long time after they free the egret. 

Akaashi isn’t use to long stretches of silence around Bokuto. It was nice, but it was unusual. “Are you alright, Bokuto-san?” he asks tentatively.

“Yeah,” he says with a weak smile. “Well, kinda. I’m glad we saved the bird, it’s just…” The grin on his face wavers like a leafless branch in the wind until it breaks off completely. 

“It’s not a one way thing, you know!” Bokuto blurts. “Since my moods influence how much the plants around me grow, when I get bad…you saw.”

They die. Just thinking about it sends Akaashi’s blood cold. Akaashi has never feared Bokuto’s power before, but realizing the destruction he’s capable of makes him a little more wary of his friend. 

Bokuto drops to the ground, flinging himself onto his back on a patch of long grass at the edge of the flooded field. His hands clench into fists and he buries them against his eyes, crying out in frustration. “I still can’t control it - it’s so frustrating! It’s like - it’s like your pottery wheel. When I try to make plants grow, it’s like I’m trying to shape the clay, and that’s already really hard and stuff, because sometimes the clay has, like, a mind of its own and it’ll do things you don’t want to, but it’s even worse ‘cause I don’t even have control of the wheel! Sometime’s it’s going way too fast and I can’t even contain the plants - clay - you know what I mean - and sometimes it spins too slow and it comes out awkward and deformed, and sometimes I can’t even control it at all.”

Akaashi imagines Bokuto at the pottery wheel, vines growing around the base and clutching onto the edge of the circle, wrapping around his ankles and his legs, petals growing out his throat. It’s much harder to be afraid when he can see the burden weighing Bokuto down. 

Akaashi sits down next to him. He scoots closer next to Bokuto, until his shin touches Bokuto’s thigh. The touch, the warmth emanating from Bokuto’s skin, reminds him that Bokuto is just like him. He’s been blessed with a power of the gods, but he still messes up, he still struggles, because he’s human. 

In a way, it’s comforting. Akaashi always imagined Bokuto’s power as perfect, as infallible. As something completely beyond Akaashi’s reach, something to be jealous of. But now, Akaashi realizes this power comes with a responsibility not unlike Akaashi’s own. It’s not all-powerful, and it’s not something to fear - it’s simply something that is. 

“It’s just. I don’t even know how I’m going to learn it all.” Bokuto drops his hands to his slide, unclenching his fists so his palms face towards the sky. 

“Do you know how long it took me to learn everything I know about pottery?” Akaashi asks him.

Bokuto shakes his head.

“Seven years. I’ve been doing it for seven years,” he tells him. 

“Woah. That’s...a long time.”

Akaashi smiles. “Yes, it is. But when I first started, I was just like you described. I messed up pot after pot. The sides were uneven. The base was too thick, or too thin. Sometimes I reused a lump of clay so much it dried out and was useless. But I practiced, and practiced, and I got better. It just takes time, and effort. You’ll get there.”

The moment he’s finished speaking, he’s engulfed in Bokuto’s tight hug. Bokuto squeezes his shoulders, chin tucked over his shoulder, and Akaashi, once the shock has worn off, squeezes him back.

“Thanks, Akaashi. You always know just what to say.” Bokuto lets out a breath, and lets go. When he pulls back, he’s smiling at Akaashi, looking at him with those golden eyes. Looking in the way that the sun looks down at the fields of crops, the way the stars look down on sleeping people on the ground - past his exterior, straight to his soul, to his very core. His breath catches in his throat. He wants to look away, but he can’t, his gaze and his heart caught in a golden prison that reminds him of home. 

Finally, Bokuto blinks, and Akaashi’s free. He's not sure if he's happy or sad or something else entirely.

He looks away, while Bokuto says, “Man...I wish I could stay here forever.” 

Bokuto’s told him before, how after his training, Yamiji suggested he wander between villages, helping the people with his abilities. How after this was all over, once he mastered his own pottery wheel, he was destined to life as a charitable wanderer. Bokuto had sounded excited about it before. “At least you get to spread your wings,” Akaashi says. 

Bokuto shrugs. “Yeah, but it’ll be lonely. I like having a place to stay. I like living here.”

Akaashi grits his teeth. “That’s good.”

Bokuto furrows his eyebrows. “Do you...not?”

Akaashi isn’t exactly an open book, so he’s surprised Bokuto could read him so well. “I do. But sometimes, I wish I could escape it all.”

“Well, why do you have to stay?”

He thinks of dead plants, dry throats, mirages on the horizon as a poor replacement for water in the river. Of the dead bush Bokuto left in his wake _.  _ Of his mother, and his promise. 

_ I can never let that summer happen again. _

“I have a duty to my father and the village. I have a place here,” Akaashi explains. “They need me.”

“Oh...”

The sit in silence for another moment. 

“Let’s head home, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says. “You’ve done enough good work today.” He stands up, and offers Bokuto his hand. 

“Okay!” With a wide, toothy smile, Bokuto takes it, and they start heading home.

“And I told you, you don’t have to add the -san!”

“I won’t. Bokuto-san.”

“Akaasheeee!”


	4. wither let die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4: ~~Petty~~ ~ **Dejection**
> 
> Bokuto falls, but Akaashi's there to help him up.

Bokuto is full. Full of passion, of energy, of happiness; full of life that literally springs from his fingertips.

So it comes as a surprise when Bokuto’s fullness abruptly spills out of him in a crashing wave, leaving him as empty and lifeless as the gap between the ocean and the stars.

The mood embraces Bokuto in a binding grip, caging Bokuto’s heart in its spindly fingers. Akaashi doesn’t see it, but he feels it, when he comes to visit Bokuto on the first day in months he doesn’t show up to bug Akaashi. He feels the sluggish weight of melancholy bulging out from the house, isolating Bokuto from the rest of the world. When he hears crying and sobbing from within the house, he can’t bring himself to enter. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance against the overwhelming power of this dejection. Akaashi doesn’t know what caused it, but whatever it is, it’s destroying Bokuto like nothing has before.

As the mood destroys Bokuto, Bokuto destroys the life around him.

The daffodils in front of Yamiji’s house went first. Akaashi still remembered helping Bokuto plant them almost two years ago. The neat patch, once cheerful and welcoming, darkened and withered in the blink of an eye.

The sickness spread. From the leaves upon the tallest trees to the deepest roots beneath the ground, nothing was spared. For a week, even while Bokuto remained inside the house, a blight spread beyond the daffodils, through the grass and the undergrowth, to the trees in the forest and the flowers on the hillside, all the way to the seedlings of rice planted in potted rows. The moment the seedlings began to wither, the villagers insisted Bokuto be moved. He was exiled to a cave to wait out his mood.

It’s scary. Bokuto is scary. The villagers are terrified. Watching death grab nature by the throat, choking the green out of it until only gnarled leaves and a crusty brown remains, knowing there’s nothing they can do to stop it, that no amount of care will change anything - that’s a kind of helplessness they fear the most. Knowing that one person, one boy, is responsible for their crops dying at twice the normal rate, gives them someone to blame, someone to pin their frustration on. They whisper behind hands about sending him back, about the terrible mistake Yamiji-sensei made in bringing the magic child here.

Besides Yamiji, Akaashi is the only one brave enough the visit him. He’s as terrified as the others about the state of their crops. But he knows Bokuto, he knows he doesn’t want this, he knows the amazing feats he’s capable of, and he believes he can gain control over himself. He believes Bokuto can free himself from the grip of this emotion.  

But for now, Akaashi will help him battle it from the sidelines.

The trip to Bokuto’s cave is half a day’s journey away from the village, near where his favorite tubulars grew. He fears any vegetable he brought would succumb to Bokuto’s mood, so brings fish and tea.

He’s still a long ways away from the cave when he begins to see signs of desolation Bokuto wrecked. Though it’s early spring, the few buds that bloom retreat back into their branches. The bamboo forest is a maze of sickly yellow. Tree bark is dry and flaky.

The closer he gets, the worse it becomes. Flowers, dried and brown and lifelessly twisting in on themselves until they no longer resemble anything living. The ground, flattened like a failed pot of wet clay smashed flat. Or, perhaps, more like a pot shattered in on itself. Dried up tries, bare and leafless, dot the path leading up to the cave. A plane of grey and brown and black. A war zone between life and death.

The worn stone of the cave blends in with the monotone backdrop, hidden from the eye unless you knew where to look.

The cave is cold and damp and dark, but Akaashi ducks through the entrance anyway, carefully balancing the basket of food on one hand. He walks inside the cave, sandals clacking on the stone, echoing around him. He hears a sniff from the other end of the cave.

He can just make out the huddled form of Bokuto, buried in blankets at the other end of the cave. He doesn’t acknowledge Akaashi, even when he sits down next to him and lights a lamp so they can see.

He hasn’t seen Bokuto in nearly a week, and Akaashi missed him more than he ever thought he would. But his joy in seeing him is replaced by worry at the sight of Bokuto’s worn appearance. His rich, dark skin has grown pale from the lack of light and anxiety. His full cheeks are shallow, the bags under his red-rimmed eyes hang as heavy as dead leaves. His brows are knitted tighter than the wicker holding the basket of food together. Worst of all is the small line of his lips. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong - Bokuto’s lips should always be pulled up in a smile.

Akaashi pushes the basket towards him. “If you don’t eat, you’ll starve,” he says.

Bokuto glances at the food, but doesn’t say anything.

“Please, Bokuto-san,” he says. “It’ll be worse if you don’t eat.”

“...it’s already worse.” Bokuto’s voice is hoarse and scratchy, like it hadn’t been used in a while. “Because I’m the worst.”

“You’re not the worst,” Akaashi tells him.

“I was suppose to come here to learn...but I can’t do it. I can’t do anything.”

“That’s not true - ” 

“Yes it is. You saw all the dead plants on your way here. I only make things worse.”

It’s a cycle. If Bokuto messes up, the nature around him dies, which makes him feel worse, which causes the plants to wither faster. A downward spiral that sinks deeper and deeper, and Akaashi doesn’t know how to pull him out of it.

“Bokuto-san. Is that why you’re upset? Because you think you’re the worst?”

For moment, Bokuto grows quiet. The air grows thick with discomfort.

“You’re not the worst. You’re, um…” Akaashi forces himself to swallow his pride. “You are quite amazing. Your powers are incredible.”

“My powers are stupid!” Bokuto shouts, beating his fists against the ground. “I’ve been trying to learn to use them for years, but I can’t do it right! I’ve barely learned anything at all! I keep messing up, I keep killing things. I’ve caused the village so much trouble...I don’t deserve to live here with you guys. I don’t deserve Yamiji-sensei’s mentorship. I shouldn’t have come here! It’s all been for nothing!”

The sheer rawness of emotion shocks Akaashi to his core.

Bokuto lowers his head, choking back tears. “Do you know why they sent me here to train? Why I left my family and my city?”

“You’re from a seaside town, and you wanted to learn in a farming village.”

Bokuto shakes his head frantically. “No, no that was only part of it - the real reason...it was because I messed up. I lost control all the time and I ruined everything, and everyone was scared of me, so they sent me away and hoped that I would get better. But I’m not getting better, I’m getting worse - and now…”

He breaks into a sob, finally breaking down completely and letting the truth spill forth. “My - my dad, he - he died in a fishing accident a year ago. I didn’t even get to say good-bye. I hadn’t seen him since, since I came here! Why did I never go back to visit?! And Akaashi - that was a _year_ ago. And I didn’t find out until a few days ago. Akaashi - I didn’t even know! How - what kind of son am I?”

Bokuto buries his face in his hands, hitting the side of his head lightly. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…”

Akaashi, unsure of what to do, hesitates before placing a hand between Bokuto’s shoulder blades. Bokuto tenses underneath him so Akaashi immediately pulls back.

“No - ! Um. That’s - you can keep doing...that…”

So Akaashi lets his hand fall back down, and rubs circles on Bokuto’s back, like his mother did for him when he was younger.

“What’s the point?” Bokuto mutters, the words dribbling from his mouth into a puddle on the floor. “Did I miss my family for this? Because I’m not even learning anything, I’m failing, and coming here was all for nothing. I want to go back, but I can’t face them, knowing I have nothing to show them since leaving.”

He lets Bokuto cry, and the tears flood the cage his heart is trapped in and loosen the mood's grip. He keeps rubbing circles into Bokuto's back until the sobbing dwindles and the flood begins to try. Only then does Akaashi tell him, “You are learning, Bokuto-san. That’s why your dad wanted you to come here. He knew what that meant. The kind of commitment it meant.”

“I’m not making him proud," Bokuto whimpers

“You’re growing,” Akaashi says, “just like the plants you work your magic on. There’s no magic way to learn, though.”

Bokuto sniffs. “I wish there was.”

“But then there wouldn’t be anything for your family to be proud of. For you to be proud of,” Akaashi says.

Bokuto pouts. “Ahh, I guess you’re right. You’re always right, Akaashi.”

Akaashi smiles. “I guess that means I’m right that you’re not worthless, then. Because I know you’re not worthless, and I’m always right.”

“...maybe.”

Akaashi smiles. He reaches across his lap and takes Bokuto’s hand. He turns it up towards the ceiling, places a piece of fish in it, and closes his fingers around it.

With a small smile on his face - but a smile, nonetheless - Bokuto brings it up to his mouth and eats it.

Akaashi sits with Bokuto for a long time, only partially aware of the sun setting outside.

“Are you ready to come back yet?” Akaashi asks him eventually.

“I need a little more time,” Bokuto says. “Besides, I don’t think the other villagers want me back yet…”

Akaashi nods. “Would you like me to stay?”

“No.” Bokuto shakes his head. “But...you can come again. If you want.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

His fingers linger over Bokuto’s hand lightly, in a reassuring touch, and then he leaves the cave.

On his walk back to the village, Akaashi sees specks of green, baby buds appear against the blackened ground, and he knows it will be okay.


	5. april flowers bring may showers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 5: **Spring** ~ **Health**
> 
> Akaashi gets sick and has feelings.

When spring comes, and the winter winds tire, and the rice seedlings peek out of their pots, Akaashi lies in bed, imprisoned by a fever.

The spring sickness isn’t unfamiliar to him, but he hasn’t experienced it in a long time. This time is different. Before, when he was forced to watch out his window as the children played, he had someone to care for him. When he was younger, and he got sick, his mother used to rub circles on his back and feed him green tea and suguki.

_Eyes green like bamboo. Short, fluffy hair like a chick’s down. Hands worn and cracked like the clay they molded, but brimming with the warmth of a kiln._

This time, he’s alone. The house is empty. Besides himself, it’s usually empty, but the emptiness feels as vast as the spanning fields of rice, as endless as the night sky, as lonely as the open ocean.

He hears footsteps in the hallway. Akaashi props himself up on his elbows just in time to see Bokuto walk into his room.

“Akaashi? You don’t look so good,” Bokuto says. And just like that, the emptiness dissipates, and the world feels infinitely small, like this room, with the two of them, is the entire world.

Bokuto insists on taking care of him, and Akaashi doesn’t have enough energy to say no. But even if he did, he wouldn’t refuse Bokuto’s help anyway. Akaashi prefers to be self-sufficient, but he understands the importance of accepting help from others. Right now, he needs help.

And he wouldn’t miss the chance for Bokuto to see this side of Bokuto. He treats him with a kindness and tenderness he usually reserves for the most delicate of plants, wiping the sweat from his forehead, guiding food and water into his mouth, helping him outside to go to the bathroom. He hates how weak he’s become, he hates how he gets in the spring, that Bokuto has to take time out of his training to care for him.

“Just focus on healing, ‘kaashi,” Bokuto tells him. “Until then, I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

The words are a memory come to bite back and a promise for the future. They pierce his heart with the sweet sting of an arrow dipped in nostalgia.

 

His mother died in the spring.

All of nature around them, springing to life, growing slow, too slowly, while his mother withered away.

The summer before, the worst heat wave the village of Fukuro ever saw crashed upon their crops. The blazing sun stole water from the river, from the canals, from the leagues of rice paddy fields, leaving a dry, cracked bed in its wake. Autumn came. The rice harvest was fruitless; the villagers desperately scavenged the lake of brown stalks, bringing back few barely salvageable parts that could barely feed a family, let alone a village.  Edible roots in the hills and mountains beyond grew few and far between. Animals dropped dead and their flesh rotted when exposed to the sickly atmosphere, before the villagers could use their meat.

The heat took, and it took, sparing no one. They were helpless against the destructive forces of nature. They could fight against animals, against men, but nature was not an opponent they could hope to beat. No war was fought, no weapons were wielded, no blood was shed, but the destruction was violent and merciless, crueler than man could ever be.

Akaashi was eleven. Eleven was old enough to understand the passive horror of dried-up earth. Old enough to witness its destruction and remember. Old enough for a wave of terror to build up inside him, taller as the fields grew shallower, and as the canals began to crack, and as heat hung in the air, bulbous and heavy. That wave grew taller and stronger over time, until it crashed against the shore when he finally understood the consequences of the pitiful harvest.

Winter came. The villagers starved. They rationed what little they had, leaving more for the women and children, but it was never enough. A monster by the name of hunger made a home in his belly. It stomped loudly in his bowels, crashing at the sides, howling morning until night. The other villagers had their monsters, too. Akaashi could see it in their jutting ribs and hollow faces.

The winter was horrible, but with spring in sight, the villagers finally had hope that the monsters who kicked and yelled in their stomach would finally be silenced. In the spring, they planted their crops, and sowed their seeds, and fixed the broken canals, in hope the next harvest would save their lives.

His mother, known for her delicate disposition and sensitive health, succumbed to the power of nature. Her pottery wheel sat untouched - all the clay had dried up in the summer. As winter progressed, her limbs shrunk to sticks, her skin dried and cracked. She shivered in the cold, and kept shivering when the weather began to warm up. Akaashi and his father tried to give her their portions of food, but she refused to eat it, insisting they needed it more. Soon, she stopped eating all together.

Akaashi remembered the night before she died. She hadn’t left her bed in so long, the blankets molded to her skin and her hair seeped into her pillow and she became one with the cot. He knelt by her side, trying to give her water, but she wouldn’t - couldn’t - open her cracked lips.

“I’ll take care of you,” Akaashi had told her. “I promise.”

She was too weak to give him more than a small smile.

And the next morning, she was gone.

Nature was cruel. His mother was far from the only casualty of that year’s war with the environment. It was a one-sided battle. In the face of starvation, they were helpless. There was not enough knowledge or supplies or willpower to fight back, so they lost, and lost badly. It was a loss that damaged their spirits. It took years to recover from the physical toll on the land and the emotional toll on their hearts. Yet, even as the fields flooded like they used to, even as the flowers bloomed again, a fear lingered among them. A fear that this would happen again, and they’d once again by powerless.

So Akaashi determined he would learn all he could about nature and plants. An arsenal of facts from which grew a sharp intuition. His knowledge would be a weapon, wielded with the utmost care and cleverness.

And the next time nature chose to take from them, Akaashi would know how to fight back.

 

Bokuto comes to visit him the next day. And the day after that, and the day after that, until the days blend together in a mix of exhaustion and insomnia and the stickiness of illness. It coats his skin and sticks in his throat and presses against his skull and Akaashi’s pretty sure he’s dying.

“My mother died in the spring,” Akaashi tells Bokuto.

“I know,” Bokuto tells him.

“I don’t want to die, Bokuto-san.”

“You won’t die.”

“Please don’t let me die.”

“I promise, I won’t let you die.”

“You promise?”

“I promise on everything that matters to me.”

 

The stickiness invades his mind, and everything becomes hazy and slow and a little bit off. Sleep and awake, dreams and reality, blend together until he’s not sure what consciousness feels like anymore.

He lays in bed - is this a bed? Maybe he’s outside, laying under the cherry blossom tree. He can’t tell if he’s covered in a blanket of wool or petals. His hand moves slowly across his chest, but it’s hard to move, like he’s dragging it through mud. Mud - he must be in the fields after all…

Was that a knock at the door? Akaashi wants to sit up to go get it. But his head it too heavy, too heavy to lift, and maybe he could just lay here and sleep.

A figure floats into his room. He tries to call out, to greet the figure, whoever it is, but his mouth doesn’t want to form words right now.

It comes closer and closer until it’s leaning over him.

Eyes green like bamboo. Short, fluffy hair like a chick’s down. Hands worn and cracked like the clay they molded, but brimming with the warmth of a kiln. They run over his forehead, leaving burning trails behind.

“Akaashi? Are you okay?” she asks.

She’s come back, come home to take care of him. It’s alright, his mother is here, she’ll take care of him like she always does. “Mother…?” He reaches out towards her face -

“I, uh, Akaashi, it’s me, Bokuto - are you - ”

His eyelids flutter. No, he’s not at him, he’s in the fields, lying next to Bokuto. He’s frowning, frowning, and Akaashi wants to press his fingers in his cheeks to make his frown go away but his arms are still sleeping, trapped under the blanket.

This isn’t right - his hands are trapped under the blanket, but he never brought the blanket to the cherry tree - and he’d just heard the door knock, so this must be the dream...

He’s looking at his mother again. Her cheeks and hollow, hollow, and her skin in paper thin.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I couldn’t…” he tells her. “I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

“No, silly - I’m the one taking care of you,” she says, with a laugh that sounds like Bokuto’s. Or does Bokuto’s laugh sound like hers?

Akaashi doesn’t know anymore. But all this thinking is making his head pound, and his face is covered in tears and sweat and wet wet wet -

_Keiji, Keiji, Keiji…_

His mother calls him to the pottery wheel and guides his hands through the wet wet wet clay. He turns to smile her but she isn’t there anymore, she’s left him alone and without her guidance he falls forward, caught onto the pottery wheel. He spins around the wheel until his head rattles, and everything - everything looks dark...

 

After the night of his delusions, the fever breaks.

Akaashi is sure he’s been through hell and back, even if he doesn’t remember much of the trip.

But Bokuto is there, with soup and a smile and a strong, guiding hand, to ease him back into life on earth.

“Here. I brought you soup. I added some suguki, since you said that helps with fevers. Oh!” Bokuto sets the tray bowl down next to him, and reaches behind him. “And I made you this.”

Bokuto reaches behind him and pulls out a halo of blue. A crown of forget-me-nots.

“Um. I see you looking out the window, and you look so sad. I thought, you probably miss nature, right? Since you’re stuck in here, I thought I’d bring the nature to you...” Bokuto twirls the crown nervously, eyes shifting back and forth. “Kaori taught me how to braid the stems together. It took me a few tries to get it right, but this one turned out perfect, didn’t it?”

“It’s…” Akaashi runs his finger through the petals. They really are nurtured to perfection. The amount of control Bokuto must have exercised to create this is incredible. He’s come so far, these past two and half years. Though he still has lots to learn. “...a little uneven on this side, isn’t it?”

“Akaaasheeeee!”

Bokuto has a power Akaashi desires like nothing else. He can keep things alive, make them grow. If Akaashi had had Bokuto’s powers, he could have saved his village. He could have won the battle against nature. He could have saved his mother.

Akaashi places the crown on his head. The leaves sit lightly in his hair, the overgrown leaves brushing against his ears and tickling the back of his neck.

He notices Bokuto looking at the crown, slightly discontent. He leans forward and tilts the crown a little. “There!” he says. “Now...it’s perfect.”

“Thank you,” Akaashi tells him, meaning it with all his heart.

Akaashi didn’t have Bokuto’s powers. He couldn’t have saved the village. That tragedy was six years ago, and he can’t afford to dwell on it any longer. Right here, right now, the villagers are alive and healthy and thriving. The village has recovered, and they have moved on. The next time disaster strikes - as it always does - they will be prepared. Akaashi is ready to put his knowledge of crops to the test. And with Bokuto by his side, he’s sure they can make it through anything.

There is one thing Akaashi remembers from the past few days. “Do you remember when you said...you said you’d promise of everything that mattered to you that I would live?”

Bokuto nods.

“What did you mean by that? What matters to you, Bokuto-san?”

Bokuto looks at his fingers in his lap, tapping nervously together. “Um, well...you do,” he says.

Akaashi’s cheeks blush, and it’s not because of his fever. He feels warm down to his toes, yet light as a cloud. It’s a feeling he’s often felt around Bokuto, but hasn’t had a name for until now.

Akaashi gives him a genuine smile. “That’s not very smart, to promise I’ll live on my own life.”

Akaashi sees the words slowly process. Suddenly Bokuto clutches his hair and embarrassment. “Ahhh why do you always have to be right?”

He smirks. “It’s in my nature.”

Akaashi hates the spring. Spring is plagued with bad feelings, bad memories. But maybe, he can build new ones, and he won’t have to hate spring any longer.


	6. by any other name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 6: **Family ~ Future**
> 
> Bokuto takes Akaashi on a moonlit stroll.

Someone shakes his shoulder, and Akaashi snaps awake. 

There, hovering over him, barely visible in the moonlight, is Bokuto, with a finger to his lips. 

Akaashi groans. “Bokuto-san...what are you doing...it’s still dark out…”

Bokuto just stares at him, eyes round, like an owl. “Come with me,” he demands at a whisper. 

He sounds so serious, Akaashi forces himself to rise and follows Bokuto out into the night, leaving his house empty.

Akaashi’s father hasn’t been home in months. He doesn’t particularly care - he’s never been close with his father. He’s much closer with the villagers, with his friends, with Bokuto. But, after his mother died, he’d never truly been able to consider anyone else as family. 

Not yet, at least. 

They walk through the village, past the huts and the paddy, in complete silence. The only sounds are the wind rustling leaves and the faint hooting of an owl. 

“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?” Akaashi asks eventually. 

Bokuto smiles at him apologetically. “Just a little further.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is too an answer. Just…not the answer to your question.”

Akaashi sighs. 

They come to the bottom of a large hill that looms above them, a great black mound darker than the night sky. 

“C’mon,” Bokuto urges, offering his hand. 

Akaashi frowns, but takes Bokuto’s hand anyway. “We shouldn’t be out here this late…”

“Well, you’re still following me,” Bokuto points out.

Akaashi’s mouth straightens in a tight line. But Bokuto’s right. He’s not going to stop following him, either. He doesn’t ever want to stop following him. 

They walk up the hill - Akaashi’s pretty sure it qualifies more as a mountain than a hill - with only the light of the full moon to guide them. Akaashi’s sure he’ll trip on something he can’t see, but Bokuto pushes the undergrowth out of the way to make it easier. They climb and climb, until Akaashi’s legs burn. Finally, they reach the top.

The top of the hill is completely clear, carpeted by only grass. He looks up. And he understands why Bokuto brought him here.

A storm of stars surrounds them completely. Everywhere he looks, bright light sparkles and dances in the deep purple sky. Beneath them, the black earth stretches in every direction, a mere shadow of the glowing sky. The moon faces down on them from the middle of the sky, its full, bright face blanketing the land in a pale glow. 

Bokuto plops down and lays on his back. Akaashi joins him. 

They lie next to each other, the only two people in the world. As the grass sways around them in rhythmic pulses, tickling their sides, and a breeze plays with their hair, Akaashi feels so light, he swears he’s floating - floating through space, among the stars. He tangles his hand in Bokuto’s fingers to ground himself, and Bokuto clutches on like a lifeline. They are two boats floating in a vast ocean of stars, still and alone but for each other. Akaashi has never felt more connected from the world, or isolated from it. Yet, even as Bokuto holds his hand, he has never felt more distant from his friend. 

“I start my final tests tomorrow,” Bokuto says. His fingers clench and unclench nervously.

“I know. You’ve been talking about it for awhile.”

“I know, I know, but. After I pass...I have to leave.”

Akaashi doesn’t say anything. He knows this, he’s known this since Bokuto first arrived, but it’s only now that the end is near that he can’t stop thinking about it. The thought has kept him up for days, shaking his shoulder in play, whispering in his ear, popping up when he’s least expecting it, reminding him that Bokuto’s leaving when all he wants to do it forget. 

He doesn’t want him to leave when there’s still so much unsolved between them. But Akaashi’s scared to make any moves, and risk a rapid, painful ending to something that could have been beautiful.

Neither decision would get rid of the discomfort in his gut. So Akaashi doesn’t make a decision at all.

Bokuto tangles their fingers tighter together. “I just...I can’t believe this is coming to an end," he says. 

 

“I don’t want it to end either, Bokuto-san.”

Akaashi notices the grass surrounding them begins to droop with heaviness, as if it was overwatered. It’s the largest slip in Bokuto’s control he’s seen in weeks. Akaashi wonders if Bokuto notices, but decides this is the wrong moment to bring it up. 

“You know, I never really thought about it before, but making plants grow - that’s kind of like speeding up time, right?” Bokuto says. “I’m kind of a time-master, sorcerer...thing. I can control the rate they grow. I can raise an entire tree in less than a day, or make a flower last a century. Not that I would - that would take too long - but I could. If I wanted to.”

“That’s a big responsibility.”

“I know, I know. With you and Yamiji-sensei nagging me about that all the time, I could never forget.”

“Good.”

Akaashi glances next to him. The moonlight washes out his dark skin, outlining him in silver. He stares at the sky, his golden eyes dim.

“‘Kaashi...I wish I could control how fast we grow. Then I would make this moment last forever. Future be damned.”

A tightness in his chest leaves him breathless. “I wish that too, Bokuto-san.”

Glittering teardrops form in Bokuto's eyes. “I d-don’t want to leave you all. You...you’re like family to me, now.”

“You’re like family to me, too.” He squeezes Bokuto’s hand tightly. “You  _ are _ family to me. You’re family to the village, too. You’ll always have Fukuro to come back to.”

“Yeah...I guess I will. ”Bokuto turns to him and smiles. His whole face glows, despite a single tear streak that run down his cheek.  “Hey Akaashi...if we’re family, that means you can call me by my first name.”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

He remembers a time, years ago, when Bokuto called him by his first name. At that time, he wasn’t ready. But things have changed since then. 

“Koutarou?”

Bokuto’s face lights up when Akaashi says his name. “Yeah?”

“You can call me by my first name as well.”

Bokuto laughs joyfully. “Keiji. Keiji Keiji Keiji!”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. I just like saying your name.”

Akaashi decides he likes when Bokuto said his name, too.

 

They lie content under the stars for centuries, staring up at the sky for so long, Akaashi swears he sees the points of light move. 

Finally, he stands up. “We should go,” he says. “It’ll be morning before we know it.”

“Wait!” Bokuto says, quickly standing up with him. “I, uh, I have something for you.”

Akaashi raises an eyebrow. He hadn’t seen Bokuto bring anything up with him. “What is it?”

Bokuto smiles bashfully. “It’s a surprise.”

Akaashi hates surprises. “I hate surprises,” he says.

“I know, I know, but you’ll only have to wait a second! I promise.”

Akaashi sighs. “Fine.”

Bokuto gives a satisfied grin that affects Akaashi more than it should. “Hold out your hands.”

Akaashi obliges. Bokuto cups his hands together, and takes a breath. “Close your eyes.”

He drops what feels like a pile of dirt into Akaashi’s palms. Bokuto holds up the bottom on his hands in one palm, and digs in the dirt with another. Something tickles his fingers. He cracks his eyelids open, desperate to see what Bokuto’s doing, but all he can see is a fuzzy outline of brown. Then, a pinprick of red that grows bigger and bigger.

“You can open your eyes now.” 

There, between his palms, stands a single rose. The stalk rises tall and strong from the dirt in his palms, anchored to his fingers by the roping of its roots, so the flower comes level to his nose. Its petals look as soft as silk, as bright as fresh blood. The milky reflection of moonlight dances on its face, pales highlights curving into dark shadows where the petals meet.

Akaashi’s heart runs wild in his chest. His lips part. There’s only one thing this flower could mean. He’s been waiting for this moment for so long, so incredibly long, he has to expend an indescribable amount of energy to keep his hands from shaking. A rush of passion ignites his blood, warmth dancing in his belly. 

“It’s beautiful,” Akaashi says. He wants to reach out and grab Bokuto’s hands and pull him close, but doesn’t want to risk dropping the beautiful gift Bokuto grew just for him. 

Bokuto blushes as red as the flower. He scratches the back of his neck, gaze shifting sideways. “It’s, um. A thank you for all you’ve done to help me. I know used to bother you with all those questions, but you always answered them for me. You helped me when you didn’t have to, and you weren’t afraid of me when everyone else was. It’s really because of you that I’ve been able to get this far. So, thanks.”

All the passion that livened him dissipates in an instant. His smile falls into a frown, his eyebrows knit together. Had he been reading the signs wrong, all this time? “I thought…”

Bokuto’s eyes go wide. “You thought what?”

“I thought this was more than a thank you…”

Bokuto waves his hands, signaling a mistake. His face blushes even redder. “Um! It is! I mean! It can be? More than a thank you. If you want it to…” Hope resurfaces, and Akaashi lets a thin stream of excitement trickle through. Bokuto bites his lip, looks at Akaashi, looks down, and looks at Akaashi again - at Akaashi’s mouth. “I wasn’t sure if you were okay with - since we’re pretty close in age and - ”

“That’s your excuse?” Akaashi teases. 

His shoulders slump. “Not really. I just...couldn’t find the words.”

“Then I’ll find them for you,” Akaashi says. Bokuto finally meets his eyes. Akaashi steels him self, and lets the words slip from his lips. “Bokuto-san, I love you.”

“Akaashi!” Bokuto wails, tears forming in his eyes. “I - I love you too! I think...I've loved you for a long time.”

 

Akaashi can't fight the smile from forming on his face. "I've loved you for a long time as well."

Bokuto's eyes sparkle and Akaashi swears he's never seen a sight so beautiful. “Akaashi can I kiss you?”

“Please.”

Bokuto leans forward and smashes their lips together. Akaashi’s afraid the flower will be crushed, or the thorns will poke one of them, but he feels the roots shift between his fingers, and he knows Bokuto’s working his magic again. He focuses instead on the press of Bokuto's lips against his, the feeling of Bokuto's fingers tracing up his arms to cup his neck, cold from the icy atmosphere. He pulls Akaashi closer and kisses him harder, as if to make for all their lost time. 

When they pull away from each other, Akaashi looks up to see the rose has curled away from their bodies, rising high and looking down upon them, watching over them like the moon.

And it hits Akaashi, just what the've done. He's never felt so elated, and he wants only to be happy in this moment, but a chain that stretches all the way from the village holds him back from reveling in this fantasy any longer. Reminds him that this hill is a dream, and tha reality waits for them when they climb back down.  

Akaashi takes a step back, his brows knitting in worry. "I...we shouldn' t have done that. Not when..."

_...it can never last. _

The unspoken words sit heavy between them. 

“I still have a few months before your graduation,” Bokuto says. “I know it's not much, but. How about we make the most of it? Can we...until then at least...?"

If they could stop this before it starts, maybe the pain would be more bearable. Maybe when Bokuto walked over the hill to the mountains beyond, while Akaashi stayed rooted in the village, and he wouldn't have to feel the heartbreak of a loved one leaving yet again. 

Bokuto dips his head. Voice wavering, he begs, “Please, I...I don't want to go back now.”

And with those words, any inkling of resolve he had shatters completely. What kind of a fool was he, believing he could go back to how it was before after getting a taste of what he's wanted all along? What kind of fool was he to believe that Bokuto's leaving wouldn't hurt just as much, whether they've been kissing or not?

He transfers the dirt to one hand, carefully unravelling the roots from the other. He reaches out and strokes Bokuto's face, leaving a smudge of dirt on his cheek. "Okay," he says. "Okay. Let's try this..."

Bokuto lights up brighter than the moon and kisses him again. And again, and again, savoring their fantasy on the hill until the sun begins to rise.

 

 

The next night, Akaashi goes to harvest seeds from the cherry blossom tree on the hill, plucking seeds until the light of the moon gave way to the bright of the sun.  


	7. blossom in the west

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 7: **Graduation** ~ ~~Pranks~~
> 
> Bokuto and Akaashi move on to new adventures.

The whole village had gathered to watch Bokuto perform his final ritual.

He stands before the rice paddy, before the field of stalks ready to harvest. Four years ago, no one let Bokuto get near the crops. Now, they gave him complete control over them.

This is the last in a series of tests that have gone on for months. The series of tests that would determine whether he was fit to be let loose and help others with his abilities. From riding roots from blight, or demonstrating knowledge of different weeds, he’d passed through them with flying colors. He’d even demonstrated control over his emotions for two whole months, his control never wavering in the slightest. Akaashi knew that was the hardest task for Bokuto, but he had done it anyway. Akaashi wasn’t surprised; he’d known all along that he could. To Akaashi’s delight and anguish, his hard work had brought him to this final task.

This test was the only thing standing between Bokuto and his graduation. And graduation meant Bokuto's departure.  

The small crowd suddenly becomes silent, and Akaashi watches as the task begins.

Alone against the vastness of nature, back facing the crowd, Bokuto kneels on the ground. He brings his arms down with him, fingers curling into fists as he bends at the waist, dropping his forehead against the dirt. Akaashi thinks he hears a sniffle coming from him, but it might just be the wind.

The deep green is sucked out of the crop’s leaves. They droop and droop the lower Bokuto goes, rice pockets hanging heavy and dry, weeping as Bokuto weeps for the destruction he’s causing. As his hands smack the ground, the plants keen over.

It strikes something in Akaashi, to see the fields collapse in a sickly yellow heap, nearly hidden under the shallow water. The village’s entire livelihood lay in that field, and if Bokuto fails now, their village is doomed, just like before.

Akaashi tells himself not to be afraid. Because now, they had a weapon on their side that they hadn’t before.

As soon as the plants die, they spring back to life. Bokuto leaps to his feet, shooting his arms up to the sky, palms up and fingers spread. Time reverses itself. The crops rise up in tandem, and green splatters through the field as the stalks become whole and ready to harvest once again.

Bokuto turns around and faces them, searching through the audience until he finds Akaashi, and beams at him.

The crowd cheers. The display of power, of control, of command over life and death, is astonishing. It goes against the natural world. But maybe that’s what they need to keep surviving - that kind of strength to fight back.

They celebrate with sake and dancing and a shower of petals, courtesy of Bokuto. The clumsy dancing and drunken kisses last late into the night; but no one tries to kiss Bokuto. Even though they had decided not to tell anyone about their relationship, the villagers seemed to know anyway.

That night, as he slept next to his lover, Akaashi drowned in a sea of thoughts.

Bokuto was leaving tomorrow. He would come back to visit, but things between them would never be the same. And he was so much happier as things were now.

Didn’t he always want to leave the village and explore the world? Didn’t he always want to learn about new kinds of plants and new farming techniques? He remembers that when he was younger, before Bokuto, before the heat wave, he’d wanted to be a merchant like his father, to be able to travel and explore new cities, meet new people. What was holding him here? His family? His father hadn’t been seen in months, and his mother left a long time ago. The closest thing he had to family was Bokuto, so if Bokuto was leaving, shouldn’t he leave too?

Ever since his mother died, Akaashi had never stepped foot outside the village. Maybe it was time for that to change.

 

It’s the morning of Bokuto’s departure. It’s early; the sky lightens in preparation for the sun’s appearance. Akaashi sits in the boughs of the cherry blossom tree, like he had when he met Bokuto for the very first time. Only this time, it’s reversed. Akaashi’s in the tree, Bokuto’s on the ground. This is a goodbye, not a hello.

It doesn’t take long for Bokuto to find him. He already has his gear with him, packed all together, ready to take to the road at a moment's notice.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Bokuto says. Bokuto walks closer and kneels on the ground in front of him, smiling up at him with that smile like the sun. Today, it’s dulled, hidden behind a morning haze, barely peeking over the horizon. “You know I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

Akaashi smiles. Of course he knows that. Or else he wouldn’t have risked coming out here to the cherry blossom tree.

“I have something for you,” Akaashi says. He leaps down from the tree, kneels in front of Bokuto, and pulls his gift out from the depths of his _kosode._

It’s a painted pot, about the size of his two hands. In it grows a baby cherry blossom tree.

When he hands it to Bokuto, his mouth drops open. He rotates the pot around. Painted on the side of the pot is a field of daffodils. Next to it, an egret, wrapped in a twisted vine. Green sprouts on a blackened field. A flower crown of forget-me-nots. A single red rose.

Tears glimmer in the corners of his eyes, making his golden eyes that much brighter. “Keiji...is this…”

“Inspired by moments we had together? Yes, Koutarou.”

“And the sapling...this is going to be a cherry blossom tree, isn’t it?”

Akaashi nods. “I grew it myself.” Bokuto looks at him, mouth open in disbelief, and Akaashi blushes. “I know you could grow this within seconds, but I wanted to do this for you with my own hands.”

“That’s amazing. You’re amazing.” Tears fall down Bokuto’s cheeks, and Akaashi feels them starting to well up in his own eyes.

“It was nothing.”

Bokuto grins. “Well, it was something to me. I love everything about it.”

Bokuto places the pot on the ground between them. Akaashi can feel their conversation begin to take a somber turn.

“Keiji, I have something to tell you,” Bokuto mutters.

“I have something to tell you as well,” Akaashi says. “Um. You go first.”

“Oh! Ah, okay…” Bokuto’s eyes flit nervously back and forth, but then he takes a deep breath and steels himself. He grabs Akaashi’s hands, and looks him in the eye. Hypnotized by the raw emotion bursting out of his golden gaze, AKaashi can’t look away. “I know it’s really late now, like I’m literally suppose to be on way away right now, but I couldn’t leave without first asking this. I’m not the easiest person to be around, I’ll still get bad sometimes and then I have to be by myself, and I don’t want to be a burden, and I understand if you wouldn’t want to because of that, and you’ve already done so much for me. So I get it, but. These past few months - they’ve meant so much to me. _You_ mean so much to me. And I - I think I mean a lot to you too. And last night, I realized...I don’t want this to end. We’re happy together. I know you have a duty to the village, I know this is your home, and I know this is selfish of me. But this is the one thing I’m allowed to be selfish about. I guess what I’m trying to say is...will you come with me?”

A wave of joy, of relief, of excitement washes over him and Akaashi can’t help but smile, smile, smile. He launches forward and wraps Bokuto in a hug. “You sh-should have asked me s-sooner,” he mumbles in his ear.

“Akaashi, are you crying?”

“N-no.”

“You’re totally crying!”

Akaashi lets the tears flow out and soak Bokuto’s shoulder. He’s so happy, so relieved. A burden lifts from his shoulders and Akaashi suddenly feels like he can stand once again. No - that he could fly.  

Suddenly Bokuto sits up. “Wait, what were you going to ask me?”

Akaashi giggles. “Exactly what you asked me.”

His eyes light up. “So you mean - ”

“Yes, Koutarou, I’d like to come with you, if you’ll have me.”

Bokuto looks at him for a moment in awe, his hands coming up to cup Akaashi’s face. “If? What do you mean if? I’ll have you today, tomorrow, every day for the rest of forever.”

He pulls him into a passionate kiss. Akaashi relished in the feeling, knowing that they’ll be able to enjoy this for a long time to come.

Later that day, once they’ve said their goodbyes, they set off for the mountains, hand in hand.

  
The first time, it was cherry blossoms. A hundred times after, it’s cherry blossoms again, and it’s roses, and forget-me-nots, and daffodils and silverthorn and every plant imaginable, until all the greenery in their vast garden of love twines together at the roots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for sticking with me through this! i wrote this very late and in a completely new style than what i'm used to, so i really appreciate any comments/kudos this fic receives, it means so much to me. thank you for reading!
> 
> P.S. here's some dialogue from the very end I couldn't find a place for:
> 
> “I’m going to visit my family first. It’s time I saw them again. Plus I can introduce you to them!”
> 
> “I’m not sure I’m ready to meet an entire family of Bokuto’s. I already have my hands full with one.”
> 
> “Keiji!” 
> 
> “Don’t worry. You’ll always be my favorite, Koutarou.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos always appreciated! thanks for reading!!
> 
> come bug me on [tumblr](http://satyr-syd.tumblr.com)


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